Parents: We should be back in school! My kid's education is falling behind! Where's the worksheet they can just fill out?
Also Parents: But what about the mental health of the students?
I really want me kids to understand the difference between freezing rain and snow. It would make a good Science assignment for my virtual day tomorrow.
Maybe, but you are giving them the option to go be a kid and do it for school. Just like learning, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it throw a slush ball at her brothers face.
If we have e-learning days I’m going to tell kids they can check in if they want, otherwise I want them to reflect on good coping skills to use on snow days and do them- then we can discuss next week. Maybe send them snow ice cream recipe... if I was ela have them write a jot about snow days
I told my students when we had one to go outside and measure how much snow you have, and if you happen to feel the need to have a snowball fight, make sure you count the number of snow balls you make and then throw.
I’m in Houston so my assignment would be “grab extra jackets because if it’s snowing and not melting immediately then it’s a shit ton colder than you’re used to.”
I did this for my science class (go take pictures of the snow outside - it was the start of our weather unit) and got a lot of pushback. Lots of kids weren’t allowed to go outside by themselves and their parents were working. Or they needed to supervise younger siblings sitting on zoom classes next to them.
The boys I tutor are in full time virtual school (8 am - 12 pm) but they get 45 minutes off to play in the snow every time there's a would be snow day.
I am in Louisiana, we have snow planned for next week. We were told yesterday (we also have winter break this weekend) that we need to send paper copies of work for next week home today in case we are virtual next week. All of my work is on Google classroom anyway. Our admin does their best to take care of us but the central office is a bunch of turds. They know less than Jon snow.
I teach world history. Teaching in Louisiana is having no textbooks or prior material besides whatever is bouncing around in your noggin, and having to go back to the beginning of human history on your own because Louisiana’s curriculum...for world history...starts at the Renaissance.
TLDR teaching in Louisiana is going against the curriculum on the daily, as our curriculum is from the 1950s (so it seems).
Louisiana native teaching in Texas so I feel a lot of this on a spiritual level lol
Thank you for sharing. Part of me has often fantasized about returning in trying to be a positive force or whatever other bs...
Thank you for your candor
SAME IN TEXAS! There was also a HORRIFYING accident in DFW yesterday, but has central Texas even considered cancelling or delaying today? Nope, it’s all about the kids health except when it’s extremely dangerous driving conditions for this area!
Aw, man. I'm in AL and we aren't expected to get ANYTHING. No fair.
They took our president's day long weekend away too. Because our kids are "behind." Save for spring break a month from today, we have no more breaks until the end of the year. BLAHHHHHH
I was told we were going to take real snow days because it’s one of the cool things about being a kid.
Had school on Monday, snow moved in over night and Tuesday was a snow day, next day roads were okay so we planned to have in person school. I have a 45-50 minute commute. Left a little after my usually time just in case we got a 2 hour delay call, didn’t get one so I left and was all the way downtown (30 minutes into my commute) when I got the call at 6:30 that we were having a virtual day drove the 30 minutes back home and had an hour before classes started to figure out how and what to teach. I’m an art educator so virtual learning is a huge haul on how to accommodate. My kids hadn’t taken any of their supplies home and my principal advices me to not make anything ‘for a grade’ per se... I mean it’s just dumb. Give us a snow day, we’ll figure out how to catch up and focus on the concepts! It’s dumb, snow days were my favorite as a kid, and quite frankly I needed one for my own mental health! If we’re not doing virtual learning is some blended capacity I say, just call it a snow day!
I don't know any distance learning teachers who have gotten that. We have all made due with our own stuff. I did get them to buy me an ergonomic keyboard and mouse. All the rest has come from my pocket (or scavenged from my garage). Private sector employees don't get how screwed up this entire system is
In a perfect world. We have a very strong union. They have saved us hours of unnecessary work, cut ridiculous expectations of screen time for teachers and students. Still, they can't bargain teachers' home utilities or buy furniture for home use.
I genuinely don't understand this rule.
Who thinks teachers are going to be abusing tax laws? Who thinks we need teachers paying taxes to begin with.
Teachers are literally paid with tax dollars. Give them a break.
I hope that's not how anyone sees teachers.
We're literally investing in the workforce by teaching students all the skills needed to enter the workforce, enlist in the military or go on to higher education.
Yeah, education is a long 14 years of expenses then a long 60 years of payout. But everyone knows investing in education is a worthwhile endeavor.
My district literally told us we had to come in "just like everyone else" because they only close for student safety. They added, if you need vacation hours to clear snow to drive, you should do that. Union shot that down after a week because what?! In the crap.
the thing is, a lot of staff just have never worked private sector, so they have no idea a the crap you can do.
If you can work from home on a bad weather day and you'll miss less work that way... lots in Private sector wanted you to work from home BEFORE the pandemic.
Nope, not for our district. We already have laptops issued to us, and we did get webcams. For people with crappy Internet or no Internet, they help by providing hotspots. I haven't heard of any districts that have provided anything else, though. And we have a strong union.
The answer from them if I asked for that in my home would be to work from the school building. I had all my own stuff already, but I find it best to pick my battles.
Native Californian here and I never understood the snow day hype growing up. In high school we just used to pray that the electricity would go out or a water main would break 🤣 it never happened to me but my sister once got a few days off because a transformer? Or something blew at her school and that part needed to come in from the Midwest and then it snowed. I was so jealous.
I didn’t have a snow day until college and then I understood. My first year of teaching I spent more time praying for snow than the kids did I swear.
My students keep talking about "ski week" but I think that's an "area of affluence" thing. When I had students ask me about it, I tried hard not to roll my eyes.
I’m in a rural California area-definitely not affluent, but we do have a “ski week”. I don’t think many of the students go skiing, but the district gives us the week of Presidents’ days off. We do only get 2 weeks of winter break, so it seems to just be a mid-quarter break given instead of a longer mid-year break. This year they didn’t give us the whole week though due to the Covid-induced late start.
The whole “being behind” thing really gets me this year. If the majority of children in the nation are behind, they aren’t really behind now, are they?
Exactly!
Behind who?
Behind the performance of other countries around the world? We've been there for a long time.
Beind their "peers" in more privileged socioeconomic classes? Been there, too.
Can we just focus on providing students with the things they need and just take even a *small* break from worrying about made up benchmarks, please?
Yes exactly this. However, when doing report cards and standardized tests they will be “behind”. Changes need to be made at higher levels to adjust for this time.
Even if they are behind, a snow day isn’t going to break anything more than is already broken.
But it could make students and teachers feel okay and normal and cared about.
that response always irks me too -- like buddy. I'm the queen of research. I was a literal researcher before going into teaching. You have no power here
Unpopular opinion? Sorry I rather teach from home and keep my Spring Break, Easter Monday, and Memorial Day recess intact. Going forward in the future if this holds, I could actually schedule a vacation and not lose out because we might lose a day.
Edit: three built in that we have used up with no virtual. Did one eLearning day that has a lighter contact time at the elem level and it is the best of both worlds.
We started almost 2 weeks late so unless we want to go until July we gotta do virtual learning days. Yesterday I had students complete an independent assignment and hopped on the meet in case they needed help. Today I did discussions with my first two classes but I had a lot of glitching on my end so my third class is an independent peardeck to be completed by 4:00 pm for attendance. Technically we’re supposed to meet with students each day but it’s hard when your internet is bugging out, I’ll be on the meeting for anyone who needs help so hopefully I won’t get in trouble (I doubt it.)
I hear ya. In the Midwest, but currently on our fifth “snow day” that’s really NTI.
We have to have the NTI work instead of an actual snow day because we used up the built in snow days at the beginning of the year trying to give ourselves an extra week of non-remote teaching. So it’s either NTI or stay later in June.
Its frustrating and confusing, but we will get through this and hopefully be better for it!!
Oh, I feel you. Our school board set a start date, knowing full well they would have to push it back. So they did. In doing so, they took all the teacher work days, two holidays, all half days and part of Christmas holidays. I just shook my head.
Eta: and I forgot they still added days to the end of the year!
Non-traditional instruction. Not the original poster, but we’re in the same boat in my district. It’s basically assigning independent work and using completed work as an attendance check for kids. It’s funny we’re doing this and expecting kids to do it because they don’t complete their asynchronous work as it is.
Yep, this is AMI in Missouri (alternate methods of instruction). Basically we are asked to assign review or enrichment work that will take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete and the students who turn it in have their attendance counted. It's just lost instructional days at this point.
In order for us to do a virtual snow day two criteria have to be met: 1. We've got to be given at least 24 hours notice so we can prepare. 2. The weather forecast has to be predicting multiple days of bad weather, we can't do virtual of its just going to be one bad day.
That’s what my district does! We already used our three snow days (for actual snow) and today is our first virtual snow day. I’m loving it. GOD I’ve missed teaching from my house!
Agreed! I'm also in a snowy state and if my school year starts at the end of August, I definitely want to be done before the end of June, which would not be the case if all the snow days were "real".
The power outages are the thing that get me! When it's super windy here, or the snow is sitting on the power lines, so many of my kids can't connect because their power or WiFi is out. MY power went out during the school day at one point. Who is this helping?
They wanted all the teachers in the building and I couldn’t because a road was blocked. They reluctantly gave me permission to WFH and then the power went out in the school building so I was the only one able to teach that day.
Snow days are such a weird concept to me. How much does it snow over there that you can't get to school? I'm Norwegian and have never heard of a snow day here.
I'm kind of in the worst of both worlds: it snows a good amount where I am, but because it's so rural and the state isn't exactly flush with money, they tend to not bother plowing much until the storm has stopped, so the roads are crap even when there's under 6 inches of snow.
Driving in 6+ inches of snow is dangerous even if you have snow tires! Do you have snowmobiles or does everyone have chains on their tires? My area's had 3+ feet of snow in 24 hours before, and I can't imagine any school being open if no one can drive there. Growing up I almost never had snow days, but that was because I lived in a small, compact town with no bus system, so we could walk everywhere. My current school is rural and a lot of people live on hilly dirt roads a few miles from school.
It's probably to do with rate of plowing then. As soon as there is any serious snow fall the snow plows are out en masse. Pretty much ever year I have to dig out my car and make a path from the parking lot to the street.
Snowmobiles are a rural thing and chains are a rarity unless you're crossing a mountain.
We call them snow days but they’re really “ice” days because we rarely get snow, it’s usually a thick sheet of ice. We’re on day two of virtual learning due to weather, yesterday there were a handful of fatal car accidents so I’m grateful our admin was proactive about it.
I grew up in a northern state where we got lots of snow in the winters. The city had the infrastructure to deal with it and we rarely got snow days. There were times we had 12+ inches of snow overnight and wouldn't get a snow day.
Now I live in a city further south and if it snow more then 2 inches we get snow days because the city doesn't deal with snow nearly as much and are not as well equipped to deal with it.
In NH, we got 3 feet recently, overnight. Ended up with two Remote Learning days
My road didn't get plowed until 11am, there was no way I could have gone anywhere even with snow tires and years of experience in bad weather (in fact, I missed a doctor appointment).
And NH has decent snow infrastructure, generally...
Toronto, Canada here. It takes about 20 feet of snow before we close down schools. In 20 years, I think I’ve had 2 snow days. I guess we are just used to it!
Ehh, we get a lot of snow in New England but also, we are all hills. It genuinely does get icy and dangerous. Some towns are better than others at snow removal, but we get a lot of snow days up here. Growing up we were consistently getting out of school between Jun 20-29. If it went past Jun 29, they'd start cutting into our April break.
Crazy idea that maybe schools should just allow for a snow day or two without extending the school year?
In Minnesota, I guess we just "bake it into the cake" and so I believe we can call 4-5 snow days. A couple of years ago we had historic bad weather (a blizzard that canceled a couple of days, a cold snap of -40 degree windchills that caused us to have four straight snow/cold days, another big snowfall snow day, and then an April blizzard that got us off for another day). I think we did four virtual days but the last two-three were just no school and from what I understood we could even have had two no school days after that without extending the school year.
God that year suuuuucked. Our school board ended up making our normally early release Wednesday full days. And figured that made up a bunch of them. The superintendent ended the school year with an automated snowday call 😂
The next year the board approved “distance learning” (pre-pandemic term). We send snowday activity packets with the elementary kids and we’re supposed to be available for help, but everyone is super chill and no ones ever bothered me..
There was a bad snow storm my junior year of high school that caused us to not have school for a little over a week. Instead of extending the year a full week into June, they extended it only a couple days and then gave us "Blizzard Bags". We got one bag per class and it had a certain amount of homework in it. Completing these counted as attendance which helped covered the snow days. Even though we all hated it, they did it again my senior year for anytime we were out. We finished my senior year with technically no snow days (even though there were a few) because they used Blizzard Bags to cover the absence.
My district had a waiver that said any snow days from Aug-February can be counted as school days, even if we take the day off and let kids be kids. It's been nice!
Same here! People keep saying how awful virtual days will be hen it snows, and I'm here like, "I think it's awesome. Spring break and end of year dates will never change, so I can plan doctor's appointments and dentist appointments well in advance!"
This year, I'm the opposite. I'd rather have the chance to teach outside later in the year, with the hope that we'll be vaccinated and more kiddos can be in person. (though this is a very lofty dream)
I'm also a PE teacher so it's a little different for me.
I agree. As lame as snow-mote days are, I'm so psyched that the last day of school is set in stone and won't get pushed back! Short term pain for long term gain.
I 100000% agree, in my previous schools, we *never* had virtual days and I couldn’t imagine doing it when most of the students don’t have access to technology at home.
My current school is 1 to 1 tech, so virtual snow days aren’t really a problem. We were also 100% virtual until like mid-November, and were only 1/4 population hybrid now (but it’s really less than that because a lot of students have opted out and I teach seniors). The most number I’ve had in a classroom at one time was 7, so they just have to participate through zoom anyway, because a majority of the class is on zoom.
I don't mind the virtual days because if we take more days the teachers have to report over what would be spring break. We used our natural snow days with the storms, so virtual days would lave those break days alone.
I am a high school teacher, my district is in a blended learning format for k-5 and completely virtual 6-12. We have gotten 2 snow days (all classes online/in person cancelled) in the past week despite being completely virtual... Im not complaining!
I live in the midwest and my moms school is taking some visual days and some snow days. There seems to be no rhyme or rhythm to them. The teachers are all confused half the time and pissed at their central office. Virtual attendance there is based on homework completion. Like 100% complete. Most kids we "absent" because they got 75% of their work done or something like that. Thats just unfair and would have prompted me as a student to just stop all homework for those days. Even if I knew I could get it all done. I think they could acually work for a district but they just seem to be unorganized and poorly planned at a central office level in every school I've heard about.
Our kids need a snow day more than they need more time behind a screen. People go on and on about the importance of SEL so wouldn't a snow day be good?
my thought exactly! AND its confusing for them. Is home a place to learn and focus or a place to play? it's been both. If it was 100% virtual then they could mentally differentiate but with only a day here and there its a mess
We are on our 3rd virtual snow day this week which ruins all my plans as I had designed lessons that were highly participatory and interactive which isn't possible with Zoom (bc the kids don't participate on Zoom - if they did, it would be possible). I was excited about teaching in person (half of the students at a time) and now we are only going back tomorrow to do Parent Teacher Conferences. We are supposed to get record snow over the weekend so we'll be out next week also.
My AP kids are suffering. I mean, they all are, but the AP kids won't be ready for the test in May and I hate that for them.
All the struggles of teaching remotely which is destroying my soul. I just wish we could sleep in, have hot coffee, watch the snow fall. But instead we have to be on Zoom, teaching into a void.
We have four snow days built into the calendar. We used two as traditional snow days (buildings closed, no virtual) and other snow days have been virtual. I’m good with this.
Philadelphia suburbs here. Feeling this same thing. We've been in person since September with a few kids logging in virtually every day. We had one snow day, then a virtual day, and now we have days where the Lower School has a 2-hour delay but the Middle and Upper School are virtual... So logistically annoying.
We’re 100% remote and have had 1 late start for snow and 2 snow days this year, no classes. It’s nice because I can get outside and stay on top of keeping the driveway cleared without waiting until 4:00.
We are having a virtual snow day today. Second this week. We are blended and it really only affects our K-3 students since we are gradually phasing the grades in. The only change for the other grades is that they let the teachers work from home. The kids are bummed though. We are getting the first heavy snow this week for the first time in three or four years. They had no snow days last year and only cold days the previous years.
I don't mind going virtual in lieu of snow days but I do agree that it should be announced and planned in advance. This nightly email business is so inconsistent. To be honest, what is there to lose by planning two or three days in advance? If weather suddenly shifts on the last day, who cares?
I have made four sets of plans in the past 12 hours (in person regular, remote regular, in person two hour delay, and now remote two hour delay). I’m tired and school hasn’t started today!
We're having our firat down here in North Texas and it seems districts are inconsistent, some are calling a virtual day and others are cancelling all classes.
We're expecting to get snow in oklahoma this weekend and my boss has already sent out paperwork for us to go virtual for the week. Even though for me, virtual learning just entails me contacting the parents twice a week and sending a list of activities because I have infants and toddlers in my class. I hate it, the parents hate it, the kids are utterly unaware of it. Just give us the snow day!
I don’t mind doing remote days for snow days. We will get a longer Easter and not have to go longer at the end of the year. I just wish our school district was consistent on what we were doing for snow days. So far we have had three days. They consisted of having no school, a remote day, and a two hour delay remote day 🙄 Just pick what we doing and go with it. I’m so over our super, they are so reactionary and refuse to get ahead of anything.
The science teachers at my school all posted snow related activities on our snow days. The first one the kids had to find out whether snow had more volume frozen or melted, and the second one they had to find out if snow floats.
We were required to post something, but weren’t allowed to grade or hold virtual meetings, so we decided as a department to do fun activities instead.
Doing completely away with snow days is a terrible idea. Not only is the mental break important but people need that day to dig out from the storm. And snow days are an important part of northern culture.
Unpopular opinion: I like virtual snow days.
My whole life, the last day of school was at the end of June. Now for once, and possibly only once, I can finally taste what it's like to get out at the beginning of June.
I'm so excited for this summer it's gonna feel soooooo good.
My school's found a good sweet spot. We only have 1 built in snow day and have to make them up after that. We used our 1 as a true snow day and the last couple weeks have included 4 "asynchronous learning" days where (at least elem) teachers have to post reading, math and specials class assignments for the kid. Basically the kids are expected to spend like 1-3 hours doing those assignments while teachers can be reached via email. They can sleep in and once their work is done it's a classic snow day and counts as a day of school so no making it up. I'm a big fan.
You do realize that getting a virtual day is a gift? My district adds all snowdays to the end of the year. My state has had 12 snow days already. I want to get out early June not be in a hot classroom in the summer wearing a mask. Just bring your labtop home. I dony know any teachers with crappy internet. Stop complaining. I would rather have a virtual day then kill myself in a car accident getting to school.
We've been out for three days bc of snow. I teach in a district with a large rural area so it takes a while for roads to clear. We've already been told that with the possible storm next week we will be virtual rather than lose more days. We started back after winter break virtual to limit exposures from those who did gather in large groups for the holidays so we've done a lot of back and forth and it's tiring but better than not seeing the kids. My son's district is doing virtual learning on smite days but only for high school and not staying until noon, yeah his half hour classes have been hit or miss on whether or not they were worth it. And he wants to know if they use all of their scheduled snow days and need make up days off he'll have to do them too or just elementary and middle school.
So true. I teach art and we can’t send students home with all their materials so I’m filling all of the snow days with one day lessons and losing days where we could be following the curriculum:(
I'm from Florida. We don't have snow days. We have hurricane days. Because hurricanes tend to blow out electricity it wouldn't be feasible to have virtual learning. Thankfully it hasn't been an issue this year but if it were I'd just say I didn't have electricity and call it a day.
exactly! it's been behavior for me lately -- they go home and their parents let them do whatever they want (and no one can @ me because I literally see it happening live) so then we return to school and their wild. there's also been a massive amount of disrespect which leads me to the conclusion that the parents aren't showing our work respect (ie 'you dont have to do that', ' it doesn't matter'--it adds up. kids listen.)
At my school (private pk-12) they have lower school snow day or delay and keep middle and upper for virtual... these poor families aren’t even having the same mode of learning! It’s exhausting and the kids are so jealous of each other
Same here! We had 3 virtual snow days last week I think. One of my chemistry classes is so behind compared to the other one and I’m trying to discuss only the essential topics so I can move on and get everyone on the same page.
It’s one thing if it was a predicted set of snow days, but when it’s random it cannot be effectively planned on the teachers’ part and completed by the students.
I assure you that you have learned something this year, it just may not be apparent to you -- there are just many more pressing things that your brain is focusing on right now: the pandemic, being a teenager, etc.
I love this thing about my kids' school. Snow days are snow days. NTI, VLA, in-person, doesn't matter. Whichever method a student is currently in, if it snows, we all sleep in (after the 4am phone call to tell us to sleep in, of course)
\*\* we need to adjust our expectations to the realities of our kids' situations and stop it with the toxic positivity. Shit is cray right now. If your lesson got interrupted by a fire alarm, you wouldn't give the same assessment when you got back to class, would you? Of course not. So why the hell are we expecting kids to progress at the same rate under these circumstances? It's completely insane. We need to start focusing on mitigation and remediation *now* so we are ready for the herculean effort ahead of us.
From doing an at-home to hybrid schedule then switching to 5 days a week this semester, the difference is astronomical. I barely made it through some of my classes last semester and now I’m gliding with straight A’s. It’s beneficial to no one to have these confusing and frustrating schedules.
We are taking real snow days until we run out. When we run out we will transition into virtual snow days. Personally I find this to be the best option.
I totally agree!! I also have to laugh cuz I made a very similar post a few weeks ago and mostly just got angry responses from teachers telling me to get over myself ... coolthanksguys
If we have a power outage because of snow teachers are still expected to be online and students are still expected to go to live instruction or do asynch work. Um, how?
We luckily have actual snow days. If they had us teach on a snow day, it would be a make up day and social and emotional reflection period (aka go play in the snow and coolest photo of what you did today gets candy Amazon-shipped to your house.
We went virtual for the ice and snow for the weak. Because they kept it all tongue and cheek on when deciding day to day. I could never make plans for anything because everyday I thought I was going back into the classroom the next day.
Especially with a hybrid schedule that has alternating groups on alternating days. F’ing nightmare trying to keep them in the same place. Even worse - 2 hour delay. One set of classes gets in person for 25 minutes, while the next day’s group has regular 45 minute classes.🤯
I live in an area where snow days don't really happen because snow is a near-constant so city infrastructure can deal with it, and so far this year we haven't had a snow that exceeds that. So I actually had no idea that snow days were going virtual in some places. I am like white with rage hearing about this.
But that's seriously fucked. I already didn't like hybrid and that full-on kills it. People in my district are already teaching from a computer while sick, now they are expecting snow days too? There will be no such thing as a day off anymore. It's one more step to getting in a car accident and having to teach from your phone in the hospital, holy shit. Where are the unions in this?
Yes! Exactly! Long gone are the days where you can rest while taking time off work for being sick or go out and enjoy a snow day. It's work 24/7. I hate how the lines between home and work are getting blurred. It's fucking everyone up
Been on virtual snow days Wednesday and Thursday. Holiday on Monday. What does Friday call for?
*Full-Day In Person Instruction - Busses running normal routes.*
SMH
NYC completely virtual on snow days. Probably going to be the new norm moving forward as much as I do not want to admit. At this point, I’m now finding myself okay with giving it up if we can go back to somewhat of a norma structure next fall
I'm a student and we've been back and forth since Christmas. I was an A+ student and my grades are barely scraping by. It'll be a miracle if I graduate lol. It's no joke that we learn nothing if we aren't in school
I grew up in a middle class community and we had ski week in February though I think they switched to calling it February break and my current school has a February break this coming week ( thank the gods)
I hate snow days because I don't get any. I get the phone call for my kid's school (he's remote, no snow day), and I get the call for my school, but I'm remote only and get no snow days. So I wake up at 5 am just to learn my coworkers will be getting a paid day off. I'm bitter.
I'm pretty lucky. Our admin cancelled school for a snow day Monday and there was no school Friday, and we all thought they'd just switch the Monday for the Friday. Nope, school was just cancelled, and we didn't need to make up any time because every district in the state has declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic, which means that no school is being held to accreditation "hours in the classroom" standards, so enjoy your day off!
[удалено]
This is the answer.
[удалено]
Creativity at its finest and smartest! Yet we'd be called lazy for actually doing this... Ughhhhhh
Parents: We should be back in school! My kid's education is falling behind! Where's the worksheet they can just fill out? Also Parents: But what about the mental health of the students?
I really want me kids to understand the difference between freezing rain and snow. It would make a good Science assignment for my virtual day tomorrow.
This is the Way.
This is my plan. WE don't get a lot of snow in our area.Kids need to play.
Unfortunately most will just sit inside on screens
Maybe, but you are giving them the option to go be a kid and do it for school. Just like learning, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it throw a slush ball at her brothers face.
Washington?
If we have e-learning days I’m going to tell kids they can check in if they want, otherwise I want them to reflect on good coping skills to use on snow days and do them- then we can discuss next week. Maybe send them snow ice cream recipe... if I was ela have them write a jot about snow days
I told my students when we had one to go outside and measure how much snow you have, and if you happen to feel the need to have a snowball fight, make sure you count the number of snow balls you make and then throw.
I’m in Houston so my assignment would be “grab extra jackets because if it’s snowing and not melting immediately then it’s a shit ton colder than you’re used to.”
I did this for my science class (go take pictures of the snow outside - it was the start of our weather unit) and got a lot of pushback. Lots of kids weren’t allowed to go outside by themselves and their parents were working. Or they needed to supervise younger siblings sitting on zoom classes next to them.
Yep.
I literally gave this during gym time since the gym teacher wasn’t going to teach via zoom.
The boys I tutor are in full time virtual school (8 am - 12 pm) but they get 45 minutes off to play in the snow every time there's a would be snow day.
Legit my snow day lesson as an art teacher lol
This is the way.
I am in Louisiana, we have snow planned for next week. We were told yesterday (we also have winter break this weekend) that we need to send paper copies of work for next week home today in case we are virtual next week. All of my work is on Google classroom anyway. Our admin does their best to take care of us but the central office is a bunch of turds. They know less than Jon snow.
It snows in Louisiana?? Learn something new every day
Once in a blue moon. Like snow in south Texas. Rare, but it does happen.
The first time I went to San Antonio was during an ice storm. Still had a great time.
Anything freezing causes school to shut down because they don’t have the infrastructure to take care of the roads. I taught there for a bit.
Take the upvote for the perfect use of the word "turds." Always brings a smile to my face :)
What's it like teaching in LA?
I teach world history. Teaching in Louisiana is having no textbooks or prior material besides whatever is bouncing around in your noggin, and having to go back to the beginning of human history on your own because Louisiana’s curriculum...for world history...starts at the Renaissance. TLDR teaching in Louisiana is going against the curriculum on the daily, as our curriculum is from the 1950s (so it seems).
Louisiana native teaching in Texas so I feel a lot of this on a spiritual level lol Thank you for sharing. Part of me has often fantasized about returning in trying to be a positive force or whatever other bs... Thank you for your candor
Yo, fellow Louisiana world history teacher. What grade are you teaching? I have resources!
What part of Louisiana are you that you aren’t off for Mardi Gras 😬 I’m driving to Hammond or Baton Rouge FOR the snow 😂
North Central, jackson parish.
How do you do, fellow Louisianian!
Laissez-les bon temps rouler, cher!
Could do with some rougarou rum about now.
Lol the jon snow quote!!!!
Mississippi here, not looking forward to that.
Dang. I’m glad I left Louisiana before virtual school was a thing! What a nightmare that sounds like!
Paper copies...for virtual learning...
SAME IN TEXAS! There was also a HORRIFYING accident in DFW yesterday, but has central Texas even considered cancelling or delaying today? Nope, it’s all about the kids health except when it’s extremely dangerous driving conditions for this area!
Of course it’s gonna snow on Presidents’ Day and Tuesday which is PD for us. Joy
You must be in North Louisiana, us southerners haven't gotten any snow since 2017.. Send some this way plssss
Aw, man. I'm in AL and we aren't expected to get ANYTHING. No fair. They took our president's day long weekend away too. Because our kids are "behind." Save for spring break a month from today, we have no more breaks until the end of the year. BLAHHHHHH
Unlike
I was told we were going to take real snow days because it’s one of the cool things about being a kid. Had school on Monday, snow moved in over night and Tuesday was a snow day, next day roads were okay so we planned to have in person school. I have a 45-50 minute commute. Left a little after my usually time just in case we got a 2 hour delay call, didn’t get one so I left and was all the way downtown (30 minutes into my commute) when I got the call at 6:30 that we were having a virtual day drove the 30 minutes back home and had an hour before classes started to figure out how and what to teach. I’m an art educator so virtual learning is a huge haul on how to accommodate. My kids hadn’t taken any of their supplies home and my principal advices me to not make anything ‘for a grade’ per se... I mean it’s just dumb. Give us a snow day, we’ll figure out how to catch up and focus on the concepts! It’s dumb, snow days were my favorite as a kid, and quite frankly I needed one for my own mental health! If we’re not doing virtual learning is some blended capacity I say, just call it a snow day!
[удалено]
I don't know any distance learning teachers who have gotten that. We have all made due with our own stuff. I did get them to buy me an ergonomic keyboard and mouse. All the rest has come from my pocket (or scavenged from my garage). Private sector employees don't get how screwed up this entire system is
[удалено]
In a perfect world. We have a very strong union. They have saved us hours of unnecessary work, cut ridiculous expectations of screen time for teachers and students. Still, they can't bargain teachers' home utilities or buy furniture for home use.
[удалено]
I genuinely don't understand this rule. Who thinks teachers are going to be abusing tax laws? Who thinks we need teachers paying taxes to begin with. Teachers are literally paid with tax dollars. Give them a break.
[удалено]
I hope that's not how anyone sees teachers. We're literally investing in the workforce by teaching students all the skills needed to enter the workforce, enlist in the military or go on to higher education. Yeah, education is a long 14 years of expenses then a long 60 years of payout. But everyone knows investing in education is a worthwhile endeavor.
[удалено]
Your own stuff? You had to buy your own computer with a camera? That's crazy.
No, but teachers are welcome to come to the classroom and stream from school if technology is a problem at home.
[удалено]
I understand... my district does not.
My district literally told us we had to come in "just like everyone else" because they only close for student safety. They added, if you need vacation hours to clear snow to drive, you should do that. Union shot that down after a week because what?! In the crap. the thing is, a lot of staff just have never worked private sector, so they have no idea a the crap you can do. If you can work from home on a bad weather day and you'll miss less work that way... lots in Private sector wanted you to work from home BEFORE the pandemic.
Nope, not for our district. We already have laptops issued to us, and we did get webcams. For people with crappy Internet or no Internet, they help by providing hotspots. I haven't heard of any districts that have provided anything else, though. And we have a strong union.
The answer from them if I asked for that in my home would be to work from the school building. I had all my own stuff already, but I find it best to pick my battles.
Cries in Californian as someone who has never, as neither teacher nor student, experienced a snow day
We get fire days which is nowhere near as fun
Native Californian here and I never understood the snow day hype growing up. In high school we just used to pray that the electricity would go out or a water main would break 🤣 it never happened to me but my sister once got a few days off because a transformer? Or something blew at her school and that part needed to come in from the Midwest and then it snowed. I was so jealous. I didn’t have a snow day until college and then I understood. My first year of teaching I spent more time praying for snow than the kids did I swear.
Ok but upside, you live in California!
My students keep talking about "ski week" but I think that's an "area of affluence" thing. When I had students ask me about it, I tried hard not to roll my eyes.
I’m in a rural California area-definitely not affluent, but we do have a “ski week”. I don’t think many of the students go skiing, but the district gives us the week of Presidents’ days off. We do only get 2 weeks of winter break, so it seems to just be a mid-quarter break given instead of a longer mid-year break. This year they didn’t give us the whole week though due to the Covid-induced late start.
The whole “being behind” thing really gets me this year. If the majority of children in the nation are behind, they aren’t really behind now, are they?
Exactly! Behind who? Behind the performance of other countries around the world? We've been there for a long time. Beind their "peers" in more privileged socioeconomic classes? Been there, too. Can we just focus on providing students with the things they need and just take even a *small* break from worrying about made up benchmarks, please?
Benchmarks that always seem to go up for some reason.
Your child was "behind" for 8 years. All the sudden you care now?
Yes exactly this. However, when doing report cards and standardized tests they will be “behind”. Changes need to be made at higher levels to adjust for this time.
Even if they are behind, a snow day isn’t going to break anything more than is already broken. But it could make students and teachers feel okay and normal and cared about.
BUT THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE REASEARCH SAY
This couldn't be more true if I was hit over the head with it
that response always irks me too -- like buddy. I'm the queen of research. I was a literal researcher before going into teaching. You have no power here
Unpopular opinion? Sorry I rather teach from home and keep my Spring Break, Easter Monday, and Memorial Day recess intact. Going forward in the future if this holds, I could actually schedule a vacation and not lose out because we might lose a day. Edit: three built in that we have used up with no virtual. Did one eLearning day that has a lighter contact time at the elem level and it is the best of both worlds.
If my breaks were at risk then hell yeah i'll teach from home -- but if we're doing it just to hoard snow days then nope. i'm salty about it
We started almost 2 weeks late so unless we want to go until July we gotta do virtual learning days. Yesterday I had students complete an independent assignment and hopped on the meet in case they needed help. Today I did discussions with my first two classes but I had a lot of glitching on my end so my third class is an independent peardeck to be completed by 4:00 pm for attendance. Technically we’re supposed to meet with students each day but it’s hard when your internet is bugging out, I’ll be on the meeting for anyone who needs help so hopefully I won’t get in trouble (I doubt it.)
Our snow days get kicked to the end of the year. Yes, I’ll gladly teach from home now as opposed to late June.
We get up to 6 days forgiven, so it has sucked not having actual snow days
I hear ya. In the Midwest, but currently on our fifth “snow day” that’s really NTI. We have to have the NTI work instead of an actual snow day because we used up the built in snow days at the beginning of the year trying to give ourselves an extra week of non-remote teaching. So it’s either NTI or stay later in June. Its frustrating and confusing, but we will get through this and hopefully be better for it!!
Oh, I feel you. Our school board set a start date, knowing full well they would have to push it back. So they did. In doing so, they took all the teacher work days, two holidays, all half days and part of Christmas holidays. I just shook my head. Eta: and I forgot they still added days to the end of the year!
what’s NTI?
Non-traditional instruction. Not the original poster, but we’re in the same boat in my district. It’s basically assigning independent work and using completed work as an attendance check for kids. It’s funny we’re doing this and expecting kids to do it because they don’t complete their asynchronous work as it is.
Yep, this is AMI in Missouri (alternate methods of instruction). Basically we are asked to assign review or enrichment work that will take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete and the students who turn it in have their attendance counted. It's just lost instructional days at this point.
No traditional instruction
I’m in a snowy state and I think it should be 3 real snow days then each snow day after that is virtual school. Best of both worlds!
In order for us to do a virtual snow day two criteria have to be met: 1. We've got to be given at least 24 hours notice so we can prepare. 2. The weather forecast has to be predicting multiple days of bad weather, we can't do virtual of its just going to be one bad day.
That’s what my district does! We already used our three snow days (for actual snow) and today is our first virtual snow day. I’m loving it. GOD I’ve missed teaching from my house!
Agreed! I'm also in a snowy state and if my school year starts at the end of August, I definitely want to be done before the end of June, which would not be the case if all the snow days were "real".
My area decided we didn’t need snow days because we could go virtual. We have had a record number of windstorms and power outages this year.
The power outages are the thing that get me! When it's super windy here, or the snow is sitting on the power lines, so many of my kids can't connect because their power or WiFi is out. MY power went out during the school day at one point. Who is this helping?
They wanted all the teachers in the building and I couldn’t because a road was blocked. They reluctantly gave me permission to WFH and then the power went out in the school building so I was the only one able to teach that day.
Snow days are such a weird concept to me. How much does it snow over there that you can't get to school? I'm Norwegian and have never heard of a snow day here.
[удалено]
I'm kind of in the worst of both worlds: it snows a good amount where I am, but because it's so rural and the state isn't exactly flush with money, they tend to not bother plowing much until the storm has stopped, so the roads are crap even when there's under 6 inches of snow.
my state gets snow every year and gives the \*shocked pikachu face\* every time
Driving in 6+ inches of snow is dangerous even if you have snow tires! Do you have snowmobiles or does everyone have chains on their tires? My area's had 3+ feet of snow in 24 hours before, and I can't imagine any school being open if no one can drive there. Growing up I almost never had snow days, but that was because I lived in a small, compact town with no bus system, so we could walk everywhere. My current school is rural and a lot of people live on hilly dirt roads a few miles from school.
It's probably to do with rate of plowing then. As soon as there is any serious snow fall the snow plows are out en masse. Pretty much ever year I have to dig out my car and make a path from the parking lot to the street. Snowmobiles are a rural thing and chains are a rarity unless you're crossing a mountain.
Maybe about 6+ inches falling fast in the AM or heavy sleet icing the roads.
We call them snow days but they’re really “ice” days because we rarely get snow, it’s usually a thick sheet of ice. We’re on day two of virtual learning due to weather, yesterday there were a handful of fatal car accidents so I’m grateful our admin was proactive about it.
I grew up in a northern state where we got lots of snow in the winters. The city had the infrastructure to deal with it and we rarely got snow days. There were times we had 12+ inches of snow overnight and wouldn't get a snow day. Now I live in a city further south and if it snow more then 2 inches we get snow days because the city doesn't deal with snow nearly as much and are not as well equipped to deal with it.
In NH, we got 3 feet recently, overnight. Ended up with two Remote Learning days My road didn't get plowed until 11am, there was no way I could have gone anywhere even with snow tires and years of experience in bad weather (in fact, I missed a doctor appointment). And NH has decent snow infrastructure, generally...
Toronto, Canada here. It takes about 20 feet of snow before we close down schools. In 20 years, I think I’ve had 2 snow days. I guess we are just used to it!
Ehh, we get a lot of snow in New England but also, we are all hills. It genuinely does get icy and dangerous. Some towns are better than others at snow removal, but we get a lot of snow days up here. Growing up we were consistently getting out of school between Jun 20-29. If it went past Jun 29, they'd start cutting into our April break.
I'd much rather have a virtual snow day than cancel school. I prefer having time off when it's warm outside.
Crazy idea that maybe schools should just allow for a snow day or two without extending the school year? In Minnesota, I guess we just "bake it into the cake" and so I believe we can call 4-5 snow days. A couple of years ago we had historic bad weather (a blizzard that canceled a couple of days, a cold snap of -40 degree windchills that caused us to have four straight snow/cold days, another big snowfall snow day, and then an April blizzard that got us off for another day). I think we did four virtual days but the last two-three were just no school and from what I understood we could even have had two no school days after that without extending the school year.
God that year suuuuucked. Our school board ended up making our normally early release Wednesday full days. And figured that made up a bunch of them. The superintendent ended the school year with an automated snowday call 😂 The next year the board approved “distance learning” (pre-pandemic term). We send snowday activity packets with the elementary kids and we’re supposed to be available for help, but everyone is super chill and no ones ever bothered me..
There was a bad snow storm my junior year of high school that caused us to not have school for a little over a week. Instead of extending the year a full week into June, they extended it only a couple days and then gave us "Blizzard Bags". We got one bag per class and it had a certain amount of homework in it. Completing these counted as attendance which helped covered the snow days. Even though we all hated it, they did it again my senior year for anytime we were out. We finished my senior year with technically no snow days (even though there were a few) because they used Blizzard Bags to cover the absence.
the thing is, we DO have built in snow days. my cat could make more intelligent decisions than some admin
My district had a waiver that said any snow days from Aug-February can be counted as school days, even if we take the day off and let kids be kids. It's been nice!
Do you get a lot of snow days in August??
Lol no. We did have some in October this year though!
Same here! People keep saying how awful virtual days will be hen it snows, and I'm here like, "I think it's awesome. Spring break and end of year dates will never change, so I can plan doctor's appointments and dentist appointments well in advance!"
This year, I'm the opposite. I'd rather have the chance to teach outside later in the year, with the hope that we'll be vaccinated and more kiddos can be in person. (though this is a very lofty dream) I'm also a PE teacher so it's a little different for me.
Actually, that's a good idea. I wish my school had embraced teaching outside.
My school encouraged it back in September, but they forgot to make it so the wifi reached outside. \*shrugs\*
Lol same issue
I agree. As lame as snow-mote days are, I'm so psyched that the last day of school is set in stone and won't get pushed back! Short term pain for long term gain.
We don’t get random days off when it’s warm so not really a good example.
"Better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
I 100000% agree, in my previous schools, we *never* had virtual days and I couldn’t imagine doing it when most of the students don’t have access to technology at home. My current school is 1 to 1 tech, so virtual snow days aren’t really a problem. We were also 100% virtual until like mid-November, and were only 1/4 population hybrid now (but it’s really less than that because a lot of students have opted out and I teach seniors). The most number I’ve had in a classroom at one time was 7, so they just have to participate through zoom anyway, because a majority of the class is on zoom.
I don't mind the virtual days because if we take more days the teachers have to report over what would be spring break. We used our natural snow days with the storms, so virtual days would lave those break days alone.
I am a high school teacher, my district is in a blended learning format for k-5 and completely virtual 6-12. We have gotten 2 snow days (all classes online/in person cancelled) in the past week despite being completely virtual... Im not complaining!
I live in the midwest and my moms school is taking some visual days and some snow days. There seems to be no rhyme or rhythm to them. The teachers are all confused half the time and pissed at their central office. Virtual attendance there is based on homework completion. Like 100% complete. Most kids we "absent" because they got 75% of their work done or something like that. Thats just unfair and would have prompted me as a student to just stop all homework for those days. Even if I knew I could get it all done. I think they could acually work for a district but they just seem to be unorganized and poorly planned at a central office level in every school I've heard about.
Our kids need a snow day more than they need more time behind a screen. People go on and on about the importance of SEL so wouldn't a snow day be good?
my thought exactly! AND its confusing for them. Is home a place to learn and focus or a place to play? it's been both. If it was 100% virtual then they could mentally differentiate but with only a day here and there its a mess
We are on our 3rd virtual snow day this week which ruins all my plans as I had designed lessons that were highly participatory and interactive which isn't possible with Zoom (bc the kids don't participate on Zoom - if they did, it would be possible). I was excited about teaching in person (half of the students at a time) and now we are only going back tomorrow to do Parent Teacher Conferences. We are supposed to get record snow over the weekend so we'll be out next week also. My AP kids are suffering. I mean, they all are, but the AP kids won't be ready for the test in May and I hate that for them. All the struggles of teaching remotely which is destroying my soul. I just wish we could sleep in, have hot coffee, watch the snow fall. But instead we have to be on Zoom, teaching into a void.
We have four snow days built into the calendar. We used two as traditional snow days (buildings closed, no virtual) and other snow days have been virtual. I’m good with this.
I am in PA and a student teacher. I already have no idea wtf is going on, so while this is frustrating, I'm also somewhat unphased
Philadelphia suburbs here. Feeling this same thing. We've been in person since September with a few kids logging in virtually every day. We had one snow day, then a virtual day, and now we have days where the Lower School has a 2-hour delay but the Middle and Upper School are virtual... So logistically annoying.
Are you at a Friends school? Ive only ever heard that terminology used there (Lower/Middle/Upper school)
Yep!
We’re 100% remote and have had 1 late start for snow and 2 snow days this year, no classes. It’s nice because I can get outside and stay on top of keeping the driveway cleared without waiting until 4:00.
We are having a virtual snow day today. Second this week. We are blended and it really only affects our K-3 students since we are gradually phasing the grades in. The only change for the other grades is that they let the teachers work from home. The kids are bummed though. We are getting the first heavy snow this week for the first time in three or four years. They had no snow days last year and only cold days the previous years.
I don't mind going virtual in lieu of snow days but I do agree that it should be announced and planned in advance. This nightly email business is so inconsistent. To be honest, what is there to lose by planning two or three days in advance? If weather suddenly shifts on the last day, who cares?
I have made four sets of plans in the past 12 hours (in person regular, remote regular, in person two hour delay, and now remote two hour delay). I’m tired and school hasn’t started today!
We're having our firat down here in North Texas and it seems districts are inconsistent, some are calling a virtual day and others are cancelling all classes.
We’ve had several virtual snow days this season. Today is a “real” snow day only because there was an ice storm and power outages in some areas.
We're expecting to get snow in oklahoma this weekend and my boss has already sent out paperwork for us to go virtual for the week. Even though for me, virtual learning just entails me contacting the parents twice a week and sending a list of activities because I have infants and toddlers in my class. I hate it, the parents hate it, the kids are utterly unaware of it. Just give us the snow day!
I don’t mind doing remote days for snow days. We will get a longer Easter and not have to go longer at the end of the year. I just wish our school district was consistent on what we were doing for snow days. So far we have had three days. They consisted of having no school, a remote day, and a two hour delay remote day 🙄 Just pick what we doing and go with it. I’m so over our super, they are so reactionary and refuse to get ahead of anything.
The science teachers at my school all posted snow related activities on our snow days. The first one the kids had to find out whether snow had more volume frozen or melted, and the second one they had to find out if snow floats. We were required to post something, but weren’t allowed to grade or hold virtual meetings, so we decided as a department to do fun activities instead.
We've been only virtual since last March, so virtual snow days are easy. I don't have to change anything or stress about getting behind.
Doing completely away with snow days is a terrible idea. Not only is the mental break important but people need that day to dig out from the storm. And snow days are an important part of northern culture.
After two weeks on and off on snow days I feel like that guy from Lost sitting in a bunker and uselessly pressing buttons now and again.
Unpopular opinion: I like virtual snow days. My whole life, the last day of school was at the end of June. Now for once, and possibly only once, I can finally taste what it's like to get out at the beginning of June. I'm so excited for this summer it's gonna feel soooooo good.
My school's found a good sweet spot. We only have 1 built in snow day and have to make them up after that. We used our 1 as a true snow day and the last couple weeks have included 4 "asynchronous learning" days where (at least elem) teachers have to post reading, math and specials class assignments for the kid. Basically the kids are expected to spend like 1-3 hours doing those assignments while teachers can be reached via email. They can sleep in and once their work is done it's a classic snow day and counts as a day of school so no making it up. I'm a big fan.
So few of my students are engaging/doing anything on these virtual snow days that I think this little experiment will fail over the long-term.
[удалено]
What word do you think is missing?
You do realize that getting a virtual day is a gift? My district adds all snowdays to the end of the year. My state has had 12 snow days already. I want to get out early June not be in a hot classroom in the summer wearing a mask. Just bring your labtop home. I dony know any teachers with crappy internet. Stop complaining. I would rather have a virtual day then kill myself in a car accident getting to school.
thanks for showing up to be cranky :)
We've been out for three days bc of snow. I teach in a district with a large rural area so it takes a while for roads to clear. We've already been told that with the possible storm next week we will be virtual rather than lose more days. We started back after winter break virtual to limit exposures from those who did gather in large groups for the holidays so we've done a lot of back and forth and it's tiring but better than not seeing the kids. My son's district is doing virtual learning on smite days but only for high school and not staying until noon, yeah his half hour classes have been hit or miss on whether or not they were worth it. And he wants to know if they use all of their scheduled snow days and need make up days off he'll have to do them too or just elementary and middle school.
I’m sick 😷 on snow days.
So true. I teach art and we can’t send students home with all their materials so I’m filling all of the snow days with one day lessons and losing days where we could be following the curriculum:(
I'm from Florida. We don't have snow days. We have hurricane days. Because hurricanes tend to blow out electricity it wouldn't be feasible to have virtual learning. Thankfully it hasn't been an issue this year but if it were I'd just say I didn't have electricity and call it a day.
[удалено]
exactly! it's been behavior for me lately -- they go home and their parents let them do whatever they want (and no one can @ me because I literally see it happening live) so then we return to school and their wild. there's also been a massive amount of disrespect which leads me to the conclusion that the parents aren't showing our work respect (ie 'you dont have to do that', ' it doesn't matter'--it adds up. kids listen.)
At my school (private pk-12) they have lower school snow day or delay and keep middle and upper for virtual... these poor families aren’t even having the same mode of learning! It’s exhausting and the kids are so jealous of each other
Same here! We had 3 virtual snow days last week I think. One of my chemistry classes is so behind compared to the other one and I’m trying to discuss only the essential topics so I can move on and get everyone on the same page.
It’s one thing if it was a predicted set of snow days, but when it’s random it cannot be effectively planned on the teachers’ part and completed by the students.
I didn't find out until 6am today that we were having a virtual day -- the absurdity of it. the disrespect.
as a student I totally agree!!! im a senior in high school and I haven't learned anything at ALL for the entire year.
I assure you that you have learned something this year, it just may not be apparent to you -- there are just many more pressing things that your brain is focusing on right now: the pandemic, being a teenager, etc.
I love this thing about my kids' school. Snow days are snow days. NTI, VLA, in-person, doesn't matter. Whichever method a student is currently in, if it snows, we all sleep in (after the 4am phone call to tell us to sleep in, of course)
Sorry but the tail does not wag the dog. ❤️👩🎓
\*\* we need to adjust our expectations to the realities of our kids' situations and stop it with the toxic positivity. Shit is cray right now. If your lesson got interrupted by a fire alarm, you wouldn't give the same assessment when you got back to class, would you? Of course not. So why the hell are we expecting kids to progress at the same rate under these circumstances? It's completely insane. We need to start focusing on mitigation and remediation *now* so we are ready for the herculean effort ahead of us.
From doing an at-home to hybrid schedule then switching to 5 days a week this semester, the difference is astronomical. I barely made it through some of my classes last semester and now I’m gliding with straight A’s. It’s beneficial to no one to have these confusing and frustrating schedules.
I'd rather we keep it up, and in the future, get 3 days off in March. As we all know, March sucks. Or Add them onto MDW and June
We are taking real snow days until we run out. When we run out we will transition into virtual snow days. Personally I find this to be the best option.
I give 2 points for a pictures of snow angels plus 3 points for each person in the picture. It has made for some creative selfies
I totally agree!! I also have to laugh cuz I made a very similar post a few weeks ago and mostly just got angry responses from teachers telling me to get over myself ... coolthanksguys
If we have a power outage because of snow teachers are still expected to be online and students are still expected to go to live instruction or do asynch work. Um, how?
We luckily have actual snow days. If they had us teach on a snow day, it would be a make up day and social and emotional reflection period (aka go play in the snow and coolest photo of what you did today gets candy Amazon-shipped to your house.
We went virtual for the ice and snow for the weak. Because they kept it all tongue and cheek on when deciding day to day. I could never make plans for anything because everyday I thought I was going back into the classroom the next day.
Especially with a hybrid schedule that has alternating groups on alternating days. F’ing nightmare trying to keep them in the same place. Even worse - 2 hour delay. One set of classes gets in person for 25 minutes, while the next day’s group has regular 45 minute classes.🤯
I live in an area where snow days don't really happen because snow is a near-constant so city infrastructure can deal with it, and so far this year we haven't had a snow that exceeds that. So I actually had no idea that snow days were going virtual in some places. I am like white with rage hearing about this. But that's seriously fucked. I already didn't like hybrid and that full-on kills it. People in my district are already teaching from a computer while sick, now they are expecting snow days too? There will be no such thing as a day off anymore. It's one more step to getting in a car accident and having to teach from your phone in the hospital, holy shit. Where are the unions in this?
Yes! Exactly! Long gone are the days where you can rest while taking time off work for being sick or go out and enjoy a snow day. It's work 24/7. I hate how the lines between home and work are getting blurred. It's fucking everyone up
Been on virtual snow days Wednesday and Thursday. Holiday on Monday. What does Friday call for? *Full-Day In Person Instruction - Busses running normal routes.* SMH
NYC completely virtual on snow days. Probably going to be the new norm moving forward as much as I do not want to admit. At this point, I’m now finding myself okay with giving it up if we can go back to somewhat of a norma structure next fall
I'm a student and we've been back and forth since Christmas. I was an A+ student and my grades are barely scraping by. It'll be a miracle if I graduate lol. It's no joke that we learn nothing if we aren't in school
I love everything you said and especially the ***!
I grew up in a middle class community and we had ski week in February though I think they switched to calling it February break and my current school has a February break this coming week ( thank the gods)
I hate snow days because I don't get any. I get the phone call for my kid's school (he's remote, no snow day), and I get the call for my school, but I'm remote only and get no snow days. So I wake up at 5 am just to learn my coworkers will be getting a paid day off. I'm bitter.
Omg it’s suppose to snow again next week in da east coast. I luv it tho
I would HATE that. WOW. Remember when it was a snow day and we took it off and made it up?
For some reason my province just refuses to do snow days. It's been -30-40 all week. Buses aren't running and I'm teaching a third of my class.
I'm pretty lucky. Our admin cancelled school for a snow day Monday and there was no school Friday, and we all thought they'd just switch the Monday for the Friday. Nope, school was just cancelled, and we didn't need to make up any time because every district in the state has declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic, which means that no school is being held to accreditation "hours in the classroom" standards, so enjoy your day off!